All the publications are not reporting that it is dead. Read what they are saying. HP is keeping WebOS alive but they are killing all devices that use it. (... and, yes, in any sane person's mind that is just as good as dead, but it is not what HP is saying... WebOS lives...).

No one knows what HP might now do with WebOS. It's obvious that their plans of putting it into every HP PC is dead. With that dead, and phones and tablets dead, to all intents and purposes, it's dead.

Life as an embedded OS will be very different, and doesn't really count, because the WebOS everyone knows will be almost unrecognizable as an embedded OS.

Given Google's backstabbing of their 'partners' in buying Moto, I think its pretty likely that Samsung, LG, HTC, or some other Android maker will pick up WebOS.
Given the need for a plan B, that makes WebOS quite valuable. They're not going to just toss it away.

That's the best thought so far. Oh boy would that be fun to watch! "Here google take your Android and shove it" by not making hardware HP can be as Microsoft is to those manufacturers, just the OS! I think you cracked it. So then we'd have Microsoft against HP fighting for what Apple leaves behind. Google then has to become like Apple as in hardware and Software ... That will be a disaster.

From Apple ][ - to new Mac Pro I've owned them all.Long on AAPL so biased"Google doesn't sell you anything, Google just sells you!"

As many of us predicted, HP fucked up WebOS. HP isn't a software company and had no idea what to do with it. Bummer too because if it gone to the right company it could have given Apple a run for their money. Oh well...

Excuse me, but Palm is the one who screwed it up. By the time HP got to it, there was little hope left. Give credit where it's due.

Apple should buy it if it is reasonably priced and sit on it for awhile. HP is not a bad company. They have some decent products like printers. The webOS is not quite ready for "Prime Time" it can't compete with the iPad. I think that HP is very smart for doing this spin-off. HP is sticking to what they know unlike a lot of companies out there trying to beat Apple at their own game. This is getting very interesting!!

Dell actually provides a lot of excellent, enterprise products and services that Apple cannot touch. Some of the best servers and RAIDs I've worked with are from Dell, and their service for said products is top-notch. Trying to pigeonhole a company like Dell as simply a maker of cheap PCs is ridiculous.

You can't properly describe it as something that Apple can't touch, when Apple has no interest in doing it at all. Saying that they can't touch it implies that they've been working hard at it, but are not doing well. Apples servers were for small businesses and apple oriented media firms. They decided it wasn't worth their interest, so they got out of it.

People I know at large companies have said that Apple could have done well if they stopped insisting that the only servers they would make were one space models, and refusing to make blades.

HP is *NOT* killing WebOS!!! They are just spinning off the hardware side of it!! Nice misleading reporting, AI!

Get real. It's dead.

If HP can't sell their own devices with webos, then why would anybody else waste their time licensing
a niche OS and making hardware that nobody wants, when a huge company like HP can't do it?

Do you think that all of the Android manufacturers are all of a sudden going to scramble to pay money and license a failed OS, when they can just keep on pumping out Android devices with little or no licensing fee?

Apple buys companies that are low market value with high IP upside. HP is about 99% too high priced for that to happen.

Unlike Google who needs a hardware company with a large patent portfolio, Apple doesn't need one. It is only looking for areas that expands it's IP and provides new and interesting tech to extend and work within it's growing ecosystem.

No one knows what HP might now do with WebOS. It's obvious that their plans of putting it into every HP PC is dead. With that dead, and phones and tablets dead, to all intents and purposes, it's dead.

Life as an embedded OS will be very different, and doesn't really count, because the WebOS everyone knows will be almost unrecognizable as an embedded OS.

This is its farewell, as no other manufacturer will now touch it.

Do you really think there is no chance for WebOS?

I never had any hands on -- but from what I've read and seen, it is a better "Tablet OS" implementation than Android, QNX, WinMobile 7 (or whatever it's called).

What if HP offered free WebOS licenses for tablets -- with tie-in apps to support their business/cloud services? HP would get to offer "tablet solutions" for its services -- the licensees would get an entre into business sales.

... Or HP could just write iPad / iPhone apps.

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

WebOS is actually pretty amazing, from what I've seen of it. I haven't had first-hand experience with it, but I do own both an Android and an iOS device and wish I could do some of the things I've seen in HPs demo videos.

If HP can't sell their own devices with webos, then why would anybody else waste their time licensing
a niche OS and making hardware that nobody wants, when a huge company like HP can't do it?

Do you think that all of the Android manufacturers are all of a sudden going to scramble to pay money and license a failed OS, when they can just keep on pumping out Android devices with little or no licensing fee?

You're right!
I read yesterday that HP was trying to bring webOS everywhere, maytag, GE, cars.... At the time it was before this breaking news so I didn't pay attention.... Now it makes sense they would try to sell it off to GE or Ford.

Samsung has expressed discontent with the android GUI and was even rumored to be developing their own OS. I'm not saying they will license webOS but they could buy it.

Seriously. They buy it from Palm, then do absolutely f*ck all with it for over a year. Then the release the same old Palm products but with "HP" on the side, then they completely give up shortly afterwards. It might as well be dipped in dung at this point.

So sad.

Hey, don't blame them. Palm drove the business into the ground. HP tried to pick up the pieces. I doubt if any company could have made this work.

These were hugely unpopular phones. They are still hugely unpopular phones. What could possibly have made anyone think that a tablet based on a complete dud of an OS would be popular?

Now, sure, WebOS had some advantages. So what? Every phone OS has some advantages. Obviously, most people don't like it. It doesn't matter what the geek techies think. It never does.

This was a lost cause long before HP bought them at an overinflated price. If you want to blame anyone, blame Rubenstein and his people. They were still running the show until recently. HP had great plans for this, but if the public isn't interested, that's it.

It takes a good amount of time to come up with a new phone, and major upgrades to the software. That's why Apple does it at most, once a year. Palm had far fewer resources. Even with HP behind it, it's tough to get moving during a buyout. That cost them a lot of time. But without the buyout, they would have gone under.

Should we go over to PreCentral.net and express our condolences to all the people going bezerk over the news... Poor bastards. Not so hubris now with their WebOS comments.

We should go and cheer our sad little friends up some?...
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I don't feel sorry for them. I enjoy watching dumb bastards suffer, so I was actually over at precentral for a quick minute before to put a smile on my face.

Some of those people apparently live in an alternate reality and they were denying all the signs of doom up until the very end, much like Hitler must have felt in his bunker towards the end. If only the "fruit company" weren't so good at advertising. If only millions of clueless sheep didn't buy the fruit tablet. If only Best Buy sales people did a better job at selling.

Given Google's backstabbing of their 'partners' in buying Moto, I think its pretty likely that Samsung, LG, HTC, or some other Android maker will pick up WebOS.
Given the need for a plan B, that makes WebOS quite valuable. They're not going to just toss it away.

Valuable to whom? A total bomb of an OS and hardware is of no value to anyone. At best, HP can use it as an embedded OS, as some of their plans called for. But why would any company want to put it into a product that customers need to directly interface with as a phone or tablet?

So, HP will hawk this in what way? "Hey, come and get it now, 50% off sale! Failed OS up for grabs! Don't wait too long. We put the code into the shredder tomorrow!"

I never had any hands on -- but from what I've read and seen, it is a better "Tablet OS" implement ion than Android, QNX, WinMobile 7 (or whatever it's called).

What if HP offered free WebOS licenses for tablets -- with tie-in apps to support their business/cloud services? HP would get to offer "tablet solutions" for its services -- the licensees would get an entre into business sales.

... Or HP could just write iPad / iPhone apps.

I don't think HP is going to push anymore resources to it at this point, which means no more development that would be required to maintain and keep competitve to license it.

Which is a shame because I absolutely love WebOS. I've got to say, that out of all of the mobile OSs out there, it was the one with the most potential for phones and tablets, at least after iOS5.

This old brain is trying remember a specific example... I am sure there are some. Possibly, it was when Jimmy Ling was printing money in the 1960s, and taking over major corporations 3 time the size, splitting them into pieces, spinning off the pieces... then doing it all over again.

It may have the premium beverage company that sold itself to Quaker Oats... then reconstituted itself several years later...

But, when you think of it, we should have seen drastic action coming from HP. They have a new CEO with carte blanche -- but a limited amount of time. He just terminated a lot of problems that were not created on his watch -- but he would have owned them in a few more quarters.

Iococca, Gurstner, Elop took similar actions -- as did one Steve Jobs.

Apple should buy Dell and then shut them down, fire everybody and call it a day. Liquidate the entire company. Apple would end up getting the last laugh.

If I was Steve Jobs, I'd buy Dell, not for their expertise, their know how, their knowledge or anything like that. Making shitty, cheap PC's and selling them for dirt cheap is something that a crackhead bum is probably qualified to do. That is not a market that Apple wants to be a part of.

I would rather see Michael Dell broke than benefit from Apple's cash...

Valuable to whom? A total bomb of an OS and hardware is of no value to anyone.

And there is zero ecosystem to go along with that OS. Nothing exists for it almost, in terms of apps.

If somebody is releasing a tablet, there MUST be a large ecosystem of apps to go along with it, otherwise nobody will buy it. That has been proven a few times already.

I suspect that is why Microsoft is taking their time with their tablet and touch OS. They want to make sure that there is plenty available for it when it launches and not make the same mistake that other fools have made.